Page 107 of January

“How many of these cards would you be willing to make for me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if I take you up on it now, would you still make me one for our one-year or our five-year? Would that be too many favors to call in?”

“Whoa!” Bridgette laughed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Five-year anniversary? Getting a little ahead of yourself there, huh?”

“I just meant that I can’t ask you to make a card for me every month. I assume you’d either run out of ideas or get tired of doing it for me.”

Bridgette lifted an inquisitive eyebrow at her and said, “Sure.” Then, she paused for a moment before asking, “Do we need to have the best friend talk?”

“Best friend talk?”

“Mel’s brother and sisters aren’t here, so I’m the next best thing; the best friend talk. You know, where I tell you not to hurt her.”

“Oh,” Kyle said. “I guess no one’s ever had that talk with me before.”

“None of your exes had best friends who gave you the talk?”

“I think that would assume they thought we’d last, and things with my exes never really got that far. I guess they also would’ve needed to assume that I’d do the heartbreaking, and that didn’t happen, either.”

Bridgette nodded once and said, “Mel’s amazing, Kyle.”

“I know.” Kyle smiled at just the thought of waking up next to Melinda that morning.

“And she gets ahead of herself sometimes.”

“I know that, too. She told me.”

“She told me she wanted to take things slow with you, but here you are, talking about five-year anniversaries, and you’re spending every night together.”

“I was joking about the five-year thing, remember? Besides, a fortune teller told us last night that Mel and I are going to have kids together, and that waskids– as inplural, as in multiple children together – so, if anyone is ahead of herself, it’s her.”

“Some tarot reader said you two would have kids?” Bridgette laughed. “Damn. They’re not just sticking to the same old, same old, are they? What ever happened to, ‘You will find eternal happiness if only you follow your dreams?’” She said that last part in a fake, distant, and ominous tone, which had Kyle laughing.

“I know. It’s crazy. But she knew other stuff, too.”

“They always do. It’s a trick, Kyle.”

“Unless she’s had someone following me for days or tapped my phone on the off chance that I choose to sit at her table randomly one night, I don’t know how she could have known any of what she said. Even Mel thought it was strange.”

“Mel, the non-believer in the magic of the tarot cards?”

“Yes,” Kyle said.

Bridgette shrugged and replied, “Well, before you two start popping out babies, maybe just get to that one-month anniversary.”

“I’m working on it,” Kyle said with a smile. “It’s real, Bridgette, between Melinda and me. It’s probably the only real thing I have in my life right now.”

“But you’re leaving soon, Kyle, and she’s staying. She’ll never leave New Orleans. You know that, right? Her entire family moved away, and she stayed. She loves them but only sees them a few times a year, at most, because she doesn’t want to live anywhere else. I tried to get her to consider Baton Rouge at one point, which is only a little over an hour away, and she said no. This place could fall into the Gulf of Mexicotomorrow, and she’d still probably cling to anything she could find just to stay here.”

“I wouldn’t ask her to move, anyway,” Kyle replied. “I know that about her already, and it’s one of the things I like about her: she finds the beauty in things. When I first got here, it wasn’t a trip for me. It was a family thing that I had to take care of, and all I could see of this place was the overcrowding and crazy amounts of drinking, beads strewn about the streets and hanging in the trees, and the smell of all that drinking leftover in the air. Mel got me to see the other parts. She sees the beauty in just about everything.”

“She does. It’s her gift.” Bridgette shrugged again.

“You’re worried about me leaving.”

“Yes, I am. She is, too. She just probably isn’t telling you yet because she’s delaying the inevitable.”

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